Ontada
Building a research program that survives the engagement
Ontada had a product team in motion and a research practice that wasn't yet a practice. Decisions were happening fast, evidence was lagging, and nobody had time to build a real research workflow on top of an active launch.
I came in alongside the product team to install one. Not a deck. Not a one-off audit. A scalable framework for ongoing user research that lived inside their tools and matched their actual cadence.
The work happened during the Health Administration Portal launch, so the research had to do its real job in real time, not as homework.
By the end, Ontada owned a research program. They could ship without us.
How it ran
Process, taught in public.
Most of the work was in the room. Sketching demos. Live design critiques. Playbacks where I'd narrate what I was doing as I did it, so anyone watching could pick up the pattern. The artifacts came after: the wireframing kit, the templates, the shared Figma library. The artifacts were proof of a habit, not the point of it.
Teaching sessions on UX sketching, design process, and playback technique.
A wireframing kit, in their Figma, with their conventions.
Documentation that matched their voice, not ours.
Frameworks for handing design to engineering without losing intent.
What stuck
A practice, not an artifact.
The practice continued after the engagement closed.
Outcome
The research program incorporates the voice of customers into product decisions on a recurring basis.
The Ontada design team uses the wireframing kit as the default starting point for new flows.
Critiques run on a calendar now. Show-and-tells happen weekly.
The team handed back the playbook with their own additions, which is what success looks like.
The deliverable nobody asks for is the one that lasts. Anyone can leave a deck behind. The harder thing is leaving behind a habit.
Takeaways